When Amy Williams, vice president of creative and marketing for Perennials, describes the performance textile brand’s latest collection as “a departure,” she’s referring to the strikingly original patterns, adventuresome palettes, and spectrum of textures not previously found in its storied portfolio. But if you were to interpret her words as a call to vacation, perhaps along the Amalfi Coast, well, you wouldn’t be wrong either. “La Dolce Vita is just such a breath of fresh air,” she says. Across fabrics, wallcoverings and rugs, bold colors conjure up carefree Mediterranean summers spent lounging by the sea. Botanical motifs capture the ripe abundance of the season, while more traditional patterns, like gingham, are modernized through tone and scale. “Infused with the extraordinary creativity that comes from our studio in Dallas, every design conveys such beautiful Italian vibes,” she notes.
The appeal of that sweet, storied lifestyle and its poetic sense of place is apparent—and needed now more than ever. “Spending long, laid-back afternoons with your family, basking in the warmth of the sunshine, surrounded by natural beauty—I think we’re all desperate for it,” says Williams. When conceptualizing the collection, she and her team tapped into that appetite for not just indulgence, but joy. “Perennials already has a great catalog of gorgeous neutrals—which we added for the season, of course—but I also thought, ‘Excuse me, this spring and summer, let’s really go for it and have some fun,’” she shares.
This insouciant spirit can be seen in Al Fresco, a winsome variation on a botanical pattern depicting plump pomegranates among twining vines. The Primavera palette of the fabric features tart yellow and cool greens; Positano puts forth vibrant orange with warm olive; and Amalfi balances coral red with turquoise and azure. “I wanted to bump up the fabric into multicolor options,” says Williams. Based on a hand-painted design—as many of the patterns in the collection are—it feels more grounded and nuanced than a standard floral. “There’s something so personal about pomegranates and the plenitude they symbolize,” she says. “As drapery or upholstery, the fabric is so pretty, and it works as a focal point without screaming, ‘flower!’” For a more discreet but equally lush interpretation, its wallcovering counterpart is duotone, almost like a toile, with the leaves, berries and fruit depicted in classic white against four pastel backdrops ranging from beige to icy blue.
Significantly more abstract is another hand-painted, medium-scale pattern in the collection, Tinta. Available in six colorways, this textural chenille is also fully reversible. “Don’t we all, as designers, absolutely love turning things over to see what they look like on the back side?” she asks. Complementing the soft weave of the chenille, the Tinta wallcovering is printed at the same scale on paperweave in four colorways with metallic accents, including lustrous Gold Dust and opalescent Sea Pearl. Incorporating hints of shimmer is a first for Perennials. “It’s been so fun to play with throughout the collection,” says Williams. With sparkling tonal threads woven into its neutral hues—Zinc, Champagne and Gilded join Gold Dust—the Glitterati wallcovering gives high-performance vinyl a glow-up. (“I was inspired by the eye makeup on Euphoria,” she confides.)
In the rug assortment, Flora is unabashedly a floral, proclaiming that status with pride. Far from a shrinking violet, this pattern features a veritable explosion of tulip-like blooms and leafy fronds in a fluid design that reads a touch Arts and Crafts, a bit art nouveau, and totally contemporary. As Williams observes: “There’s a slight ’70s vibe too”—the mood she tapped into via a Spotify playlist of vintage Italian disco that provided a soundtrack to previews of the collection at January’s Paris Déco Off. Tibetan hand-knotted craftsmanship imbues the design with remarkable movement and depth that’s enhanced by two distinct palettes: romantic, rose-cast Roma and fresh, energetic Primavera. “We really exaggerated the scale and saturated the insane, sexy, dimensional colors to create a conversation piece,” she says. For an au courant twist on the color-drenching trend, custom-trimmed Flora rugs can be paired with the same pattern in a printed wallcovering rendered in muted shades like Biscotti and Sea Foam that Williams describes as producing “more of a soft, serene effect.”
La Dolce Vita presented an opportunity for Perennials to experiment with the role its rugs play in the hierarchy of a design scheme. “Historically, many of our rugs served as beautiful, if subdued, layers,” she says. “For this collection, I wanted to flip the switch and have them be the signature piece where designers start, building their rooms around it.” Two dramatically different designs illustrate the possibilities. Abstracting the delicacy of butterfly wings and rose petals adrift on the wind, hand-knotted Flutter dances across a space with rainbow-speckled swirls. Visually rhythmic and ready for the outdoors, handwoven flat-weave Viva hypnotizes with its tricolor hexagonal honeycomb repeats.
The same Confetti colorway that characterizes Flutter also infuses the softly cubist Scusi rug, which features an assortment of shapes that recall the spontaneous paint dabs on an artist’s easel. Scusi Shag takes the same concept, turns down the colors to Beach Glass beiges, corals, greens and blues, then amps up the texture to 11, bordering the patchwork forms with thick pile. “That quality is something different for Perennials, the dramatic fluctuations in dimensionality,” says Williams. Both riffs on the rug are born from a hand-painted design that’s also the basis for a corresponding large-scale, performance-vinyl wallcovering that creates the sensation of living inside a dreamy watercolor canvas. “Imagine adapting one work of art in so many contrasting ways,” she continues. “It demonstrates how we want to stay curious, experiment with surprising elements, and explore what they can do.”
Innovation and tradition are all in the family of La Dolce Vita fabrics. Via plied yarns, Nonna reimagines grandma’s beloved gingham in five evocative tonal blends—including the reds of Roma, yellows of Limoncello and blues of Capri. Bambino minimizes the scale of the checkered squares, simplifies the color treatments, and adds the baby-soft texture of chenille. “We paid close attention to the colors for the two ginghams, producing samples on our looms in Dallas that focused on ombre-esque fields of different percentages within a particular shade,” says Williams. As a result, what’s typically considered a commonplace pattern gains a whole new level of sophistication while retaining its comforting familiarity.
Several “delectable” hues make their debut in the collection, marking an expansion of Perennials’ go-to palette. “We wanted to change the conversation,” explains Williams. “Our environments are one of the few areas in life we’re lucky enough to control, so why wouldn’t we choose bright colors that make us feel happy?” With names like Biscotti, Limoncello, Melon, Oyster and Saffron, they may also make us feel hungry—and have us reaching for an Aperol spritz. “Or a cold, crisp glass of prosecco,” she adds. Delicious food and wine are an underlying facet of the La Dolce Vita ethos—one the brand has celebrated with build-your-own-cannoli and make-your-own-pasta immersive experiences at launch events. Its advertising reflects the festive attitude too. “We’re evolving our visual language and typography, making interesting, more elevated choices enlivened with whimsy,” she says. Like an elegant scrapbook, several smaller photos are often layered in a single image with a large-scale pattern as a background. Some resemble off-the-cuff, old-school Polaroid snapshots. “Like capturing glimpses in time,” she notes. With the same warm, casual spirit of the collection itself, the approach is intended to welcome anyone new to the brand while exciting loyal fans with irresistible patterns.
It’s all part of the ambience, which can be enjoyed anywhere—no passport necessary. “Less a destination, more a state of mind,” says Williams. Layer a room with La Dolce Vita’s artful rugs, fabrics and wallcoverings, and life will indeed be sweet.
This story is a paid promotion and was created in partnership with Perennials.
Homepage image: Perennials’ La Dolce Vita collection celebrates the carefree spirit of summers spent relaxing with family, friends—and food! Atop Nonna, a modern-day, tonally nuanced gingham, panels in Al Fresco, a botanical pattern intertwining vines with pomegranates, designate the place settings | Courtesy of Perennials
